Inside the Star

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani offers hope for end to nuclear impasse at maiden UN speech

In charm offensive to world leaders, Rouhani pleads for “acceptance and respect” for Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program. President Barack Obama cautiously accepted the possibility of a nuclear deal.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani brought his full charm offensive to bear on the world’s top leaders and diplomats Monday in a maiden speech that sought to charm — but went on the offensive against foes who labelled his country the “Iranian threat” for its nuclear ambitions and show of muscle in the Mideast.

Rouhani’s maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly reiterated old themes of protest against “unjust” international sanctions, with warnings that “Islamophobic, Shia-phobic and Iran-phobic discourses do indeed represent serious threats against world peace and human security.”

But in a new signal that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was ready to reboot — although conditionally — negotiations on the contentious nuclear issue, Rouhani said Iran could engage “immediately in time-bound and result-oriented talks to build mutual confidence and removal of mutual uncertainties with full transparency.”

Ahead of high-level New York meetings between Iran’s foreign minister and counterparts from the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany, Rouhani also warned that Iran’s nuclear program is now too big to fail.

“Nuclear knowledge . . . has been domesticated now and the nuclear technology, inclusive of (uranium) enrichment, has already reached industrial scale,” he said, calling for “acceptance and respect” for Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program.

But the burly, bearded Rouhani, who has enjoyed minor celebrity status on his first presidential trip to New York, also took a “soft power” approach that was in sharp contrast to that of his belligerent predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It offered a prescription for solving the nuclear issue that has brought his country to economic crisis and the brink of attack by Israel or Washington.

Declaring that Iran’s nuclear program was “openly and unambiguously” for peaceful purposes — long the contention of Iran’s rulers — he said that his country sought “constructive engagement based on mutual respect and common interest,” and not to raise tensions with the U.S.

The speech offered some hope for a way out of a nuclear impasse that has continued for years, due to missed deadlines, broken promises, bellicose pronouncements from Iran, escalating sanctions and Israeli hints that it would take down the nuclear program by force.

But after bruising and costly wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Washington has little appetite for a new confrontation, and the economic sanctions have caused pain, anger and threatened instability in Iran.

Iran is also part of a Shia minority in the region, and has faced a backlash from more numerous Sunni states. It fears losing its main ally, Syria, in a bloody civil war, and has encouraged allied Hezbollah fighters to join President Bashar Assad’s battle against his opponents.

Israel’s response to Rouhani’s UN speech was quick and negative, accusing Iran of buying time to develop a nuclear weapon.

President Barack Obama cautiously accepted the possibility of a nuclear deal, saying that “conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are transparent and verifiable.” A sentiment echoed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said there must be “deeds, not words.”

But optimists who predicted a historic handshake between Rouhani and Obama were disappointed.

A senior U.S. official told reporters the Iranians found it “too complicated” to arrange a corridor meeting, and speculation that Obama and Rouhani might greet each other at a UN-hosted luncheon was dampened when the Iranian president turned it down — officially because alcohol was served with the meal, according to Iran’s Press TV.

However, American officials said that Iran did not appear ready for a first date with the U.S. president, at the beginning of a difficult courtship.

In his UN speech, Rouhani said that Washington’s contention that “the military option is on the table” if Iran continued its nuclear development was “illegal and ineffective,” while insisting that “peace is within reach.”

And he said he was “deeply optimistic about a future brightened by “prudent moderation.”

Ultimately, much still depends on Khamenei’s commitment to ending the nuclear standoff. In 2003, Rouhani, as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, talked the supreme leader into allowing suspension of uranium enrichment in order to reach a nuclear deal. But negotiations failed, and Rouhani was fired from the post.

This time he is in a more secure political position, but has little more autonomy on the country’s most crucial decisions.